Combat Cameraman promotes book at Camp Lejeune

Maj. Norman ‘Norm' Hatch, autographs a copy of War Shots: Norman Hatch and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Cameramen of WWII.

By Lance Cpl. Victor Barrera
Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune

While others were down on the dirt in the prone, he was standing, sometimes with his back to the enemy hearing the mortars go over his head and bullets snap, a little too close to home. When others fixed bayonets to prepare for hand-to-hand combat from an oncoming Japanese charge, he positioned himself right in the middle of them and captured the first picture to ever show both sides of the war attacking.

Retired Marine photographer Maj. Norman ‘Norm’ Hatch, who served in World War II with the 2nd Marine Division came aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune with author Charles ‘Chip’ Jones to promote his new book, War Shots: Norman Hatch and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Cameramen of WWII.

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Member has new book

Dear Fellow Marines, My publisher, Windy City Publishers, just released my latest suspenseful novel, THE WARRIOR AMONG US. After a nuclear war annihilates an entire civilization, the United States falls off the international stage when Congress becomes impotent after years of partisan politics, and is unable to function. The world Read more…

Hatch signs books

Writer’s Cramp –Celebrated World War II cinematographer Norm Hatch is spending many of his days lately autographing copies of War Shots, the great tome by Charles Jones, highlights the photographic capture of World War II in the Pacific by Marine Combat Cameramen. 

War Shots book features combat cameramen in WWII

War Shots: Norm Hatch and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Cameramen of World War II (Hardcover)
A book by Charles Jones is finally available and features the story of how military photographers got their shots while storming beaches and assaulting pillboxes with combat troops. It also describes how long time member Norm Hatch filmed With the Marines at Tarawa, which won the 1944 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject and was Person of the Week on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer in March 2010. There are new details on the controversy surrounding the famous photo of the flag raising on Iwo Jima. It should interest the fans of “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” and HBO’s “The Pacific”

Jones, a former staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has also written “Boys of `67,” which the New York Post called “riveting and entertaining” and which won the Military Writers Society of America’s Gold Medal for Best Biography, and “Red, White, or Yellow?,” for which he embedded with a military unit in Iraq.
 
“Watch for Bob Jordan’s review in Leatherneck’s March issue”

Some of our members have already placed reviews on Amazon.com about the book:

Review: HERO OF THE PACIFIC: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone

HERO OF THE PACIFIC: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone.
By James Brady. Published by John Wiley & Sons Inc. 272 pages.
Stock #0470379413. $23.36 MCA Members. $25.95 Regular Price.

We knew from conversations just prior to his sudden death in January 2009 that Parade Magazine’s James Brady was working on a book covering the life of the legendary Marine, “Manila John” Basilone. What we did not know was how Brady would approach his subject. Brady followers, me among them, thought he would fictionalize Marine history as he did in various novels, including “Marine,” “Warning of War” and “The Marines of Autumn.”
What we have in “Hero of the Pacific” is more akin to Brady’s “Why Marines Fight,” only with a sharper eye on the actual fiction that surrounded this Marine hero. Brady had this sharper eye. After all, as a decorated Marine platoon leader who fought in the cold of the second Korean winter, he had some insight as to what an infantry platoon and, more importantly, what a machine-gun section could and should do. As a veteran newsman, he also knew how to “mine” a story.

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Oliver gaining press for his book “Command Attention…”

Past president Col. Keith Oliver, USMC (Ret.), is gaining steam for his book, “Command Attention: Promoting Your Organization the Marine Corps Way.”  Leatherneck Magazine named it November’s “Book of the Month.”  And www.wtop.com, owned by the Washington, D.C. radio station 103.5 FM features Keith’s first radio interview.

Check it out here: Keith Oliver’s radio interview

The U.S. Marine Corps is widely recognized and admired as the undisputed leader in presenting its case as the world’s most effective military organization. This book explains how to promote your own group with the same effectiveness. Written primarily for new Marine Public Affairs Officers (PAOs), this handy reference will also prove useful to Marine Corps leaders assigned to independent duty as well as those who are de facto PAOs.

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